DOCUMENTARY:
ELIZABETH II
THE PARASITIC AND CORRUPT
HOUSE OF WINDSOR
AND THEIR PARTNERSHIP FOR
CASH WITH
GLOBAL MUSLIM DICTATORSHIPS.
Now Sarah, Duchess of York cosies up to the Saudi Crown Prince blamed for journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder
- Sarah Ferguson accepted an invitation from Prince Mohammed bin Salman
- She agreed to appear at a conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh this month
- United Nations and CIA named Crown Prince as prime suspect for sanctioning a 15-strong assassination squad to kill Washington Post journalist Khashoggi
The Duchess of York travelled to Saudi Arabia as a guest of the Crown Prince accused of ordering the savage torture and murder of a campaigning journalist – and promptly lavished praise on the nation's 'good leadership'.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Sarah Ferguson accepted an invitation from Prince Mohammad bin Salman to appear at a conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh earlier this month.
Both the United Nations and the CIA have named the Crown Prince – known by his initials MbS – as the prime suspect for sanctioning a 15-strong assassination squad to kill Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.
The journalist had been an outspoken critic of the ruling House of Saud regime.
Sarah, Duchess of York (pictured at the Misk Global Forum) accepted an invitation from Prince Mohammad bin Salman to appear at a conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh
But during the conference, the Duchess gushed: 'Everyone has been so nice here in Riyadh. I think that comes from good leadership.'
News of her decision to cosy up to MbS – the second most senior figure in the kingdom and whose family wealth is estimated at £1 trillion – comes as her ex-husband Prince Andrew struggles with the fallout from his disastrous TV interview about his relationship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
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Now Fergie also finds herself accused of poor judgment. Labour politician Ann Clwyd, who was a member of a cross-party panel of MPs who accused Saudi authorities of torturing women detainees, said: 'There are so many questions to be asked about this man [MbS]. Perhaps someone should teach the Duchess some hard facts about life in Saudi Arabia and how their policies affect so many people.
'I couldn't imagine someone like Princess Diana doing something like this.
Pictured: Sarah, Duchess of York speaks at the Misk Global Forum in Riyadh earlier this month
'It's really damaging for the Royal Family itself when one of them is involved in that.'
The invitation from MbS to attend the Misk Global Forum on November 12 was extended by Bader Al-Asaker, the head of his private office. The Misk Foundation describes itself as 'devoted to cultivate and encourage learning and leadership in youth for a better future in Saudi Arabia'.
The Duchess's spokesman insisted the 60-year-old had not been paid to attend the event, which is chaired by the Crown Prince.
But after a rambling interview, she took the opportunity to promote her brands of room infusers, flavoured teas and jewellery.
The Duchess's spokesman said that any profits from the event would be given to a children's trust that she founded with the charity Humanitas.
During an on-stage interview for which she was billed 'The Resilient Philanthropreneur', the Duchess – dressed in a khaki robe, pink headscarf and a black headband – was jokingly described as 'Sarah of Arabia' and incorrectly introduced as 'Her Highness'.
She was stripped of the title when her marriage to Andrew ended in 1996.
Addressing a half-empty auditorium, she described the Duke as a 'true and real gentleman', and said: 'The greatest day of my life was marrying Prince Andrew, the finest man, the finest father, the best person I know in the world.'
The United Nations and the CIA have named the Crown Prince (pictured) as the prime suspect for sanctioning a 15-strong assassination squad to kill Jamal Khashoggi
Pictured: Footage of one of the suspected killers, dressed in a blue checked shirt, entering the consulate shortly before Khashoggi's murder in October 2018
She also claimed to have invented the word 'philanthropreneur' – even though it was actually coined 20 years ago by the Wall Street Journal – adding: 'I'm 60 and I'm just beginning my working life. Thanks very much for staying, by the way, those of you who've stayed.
'I'm so diversified that all the old wizards of life have said to me, 'You need to only focus on one thing.' But I say, 'No, if you want to write a book, write a book. If you want to make tea, make tea.'
'But really just give your heart to everything you do. I'm an embodiment of failure and I love it. It's really cool.'
In an interview with the Arab News newspaper the following day, Fergie told a journalist: 'I love the feeling of kindness that I'm getting from the people of Saudi Arabia.'
It is a sentiment unlikely to be shared by Mr Khashoggi's fiancee Hatice Cengiz, who waited outside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as his killers hacked up his body before flying back to Saudi in a private jet under diplomatic cover.
Jamal Khashoggi (pictured) was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018
The 59-year-old's remains have never been recovered.
Despite the clinical premeditation, some aspects of the killing bordered on farce. The killers failed to notice CCTV cameras monitoring their arrival and departure from the consulate, for example, and Turkish police quickly rumbled a ruse to send a Saudi official out in Mr Khashoggi's clothing as an attempted decoy because the 'double' failed to remove his distinctive trainers.
A total of 18 Saudis were eventually arrested, of whom 11 have been charged with murder.
The Saudi royal family, including MbS, have denied involvement, but the Crown Prince did accept in a TV interview that he bore responsibility because the atrocity happened under his watch.
After the murder, CIA analysts ruled it highly unlikely that such an act could have been taken place without MbS's agreement.
A spokesman for the Duchess confirmed that she had travelled to Riyadh as a guest of the Crown Prince.
'The Duchess is not a political figure and she is totally unapologetic about going to meet the young people of Saudi Arabia who will be a force for change in that country,' the spokesman said.
'She did not meet the Crown Prince while she was in Saudi Arabia but she did meet ministers from governments of many countries who engaged in the annual forum.'
Epstein scandal engulfs Britain’s Royal family after BBC interview with
Prince Andrew
Prince Andrew [Credit: commons.wikimedia.org]
Epstein scandal engulfs Britain’s Royal family after BBC interview with
Prince Andrew
An attempt at damage limitation by the palace and the BBC has
backfired in spectacular fashion. Prince Andrew’s Newsnight interview
with Emily Maitlis sought to refute allegations that his relations with
deceased billionaire sex offender and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein included
having paid sex with an underage girl. But his answers were met with widespread
derision and demands that the Duke of York go to the United States to testify
under oath.
Epstein was at the
centre of an elite social circle and procured women and underage girls for
sexual abuse by himself and others. The prince maintained his relations with
Epstein long after he was convicted for his crimes.
In 2008, Epstein served
13 months for
procuring an underage
girl for prostitution and
of soliciting a
prostitute. A three-year
investigation had
identified 36 girls, some as
young as 14 years old,
he had sexually
abused.
Epstein was arrested
again on July 6, 2019, on federal charges
for the sex trafficking
of minors in Florida and New York. He died
in his jail cell on
August 10, 2019. Ruled as a suicide, Epstein’s
lawyers and many others
have alleged that he was assassinated
to protect his friends
in high places—including the Duke of York.
Andrew’s friendship
with Epstein was close and even involved arranging for him to pay off the debts
of his former wife, Sarah, Duchess of York.
In January, Virginia
Roberts, now with the married name Giuffre, alleged in a court case that
Andrew, “a former prime minister” and lawyer Alan Dershowitz had sex with her
while she was a teenager. Epstein had paid her £10,000 to have sex with the
Duke on three occasions, including during a trip to London in 2001, when she
was 17, in New York and on a private Caribbean island.
Flight logs confirmed
that Andrew and Roberts/Giuffre were in all the places she alleges sex
happened. There is a photo of him with his arm around her waist taken at the
London flat of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s alleged “madam” and a friend of
Prince Andrew. A second girl, Joanna Sjoberg, alleges that Andrew touched her
breast while seated with Roberts in Epstein’s mansion.
In August 2019, the New
Republic magazine published an email exchange between Epstein
associate John Brockman and journalist Evgeny Morozov from September 2013, in
which Brockman mentions seeing a British man named “Andy” receiving a foot
massage from two young Russian women at Epstein’s New York mansion in 2010. He
later “realized that the recipient” of the foot massage “was His Royal
Highness, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.”
Pilot David Rodgers
claims the prince was a passenger on flights with the financier and
Roberts/Giuffre, including to the US Virgin Islands on April 11, 2001.
Last month the
right-wing website Project Veritas published a leaked video, revealing that ABC
News had suppressed reports of Epstein’s sex-trafficking for three years,
with Breaking News anchor and Good Morning America co-host
Amy Robach stating off-camera, “Then the Palace found out we had
[Roberts/Giuffre] whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a
million different ways. We were so worried that we wouldn’t be able to
interview Kate [Middleton] and Will [Prince William], that also quashed the
story.”
This was the background
to the November 16 Maitlis interview, recorded in Buckingham Palace November
14.
To give a flavour of
the painful episode, Andrew said he first met Epstein in 1999 through his
girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the deceased and disgraced media
tycoon Robert Maxwell. He had maintained relations only because he wanted to
learn more about the “international business world” in his capacity as a
special representative for international trade and investment. Epstein had
attended Princess Beatrice’s 18th birthday at Windsor Castle in July 2006, but
only as Maxwell’s “plus one.” Beatrice is Andrew’s daughter.
Andrew had broken contact
with Epstein after his initial conviction, until December 2010, when he visited
the financier just four months after he had completed his prison sentence. The
duke claimed he had only done so to (again) break off relations. He had
considered speaking to Epstein by telephone but decided to meet him
face-to-face “to show leadership.”
Asked why he had then
stayed at Epstein’s mansion and attended a dinner party, Andrew said, “It was a
convenient place to stay… with the benefit of all the hindsight that one can
have it was definitely the wrong thing to do but at the time I felt it was the
honourable and right thing to do.
“I admit fully my
judgement was probably coloured by my tendency to be too honourable,” he added.
Asking about the
alleged sexual encounter with Roberts/Giuffre, Maitlis said, “She says she met
you in 2001, she says she dined with you, danced with you at Tramp Nightclub in
London. She went on to have sex with you in a house in Belgravia belonging to
Ghislaine Maxwell, your friend. Your response?”
Andrew replied: “I have
no recollection of ever meeting this lady, none whatsoever.”
Roberts/Giuffre’s
accusations were “very specific,” Maitlis said, including that the prince had
been “profusely sweating.” He replied that “I didn’t sweat at the time because
I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenalin in the
Falklands War when I was shot at and I simply… it was almost impossible for me
to sweat.” He had only started to be able to sweat again “in the recent past.”
“Nobody can prove
whether or not that photograph has been doctored but I don’t recollect that
photograph ever being taken,” he said. He had never been upstairs at Maxwell’s
Belgravia flat and “when I go out in London, I wear a suit and a tie.” He was
shown with his hand on her waist, but “I am not one to, as it were, hug.”
Most importantly, the
day that his encounter with Roberts/Giuffre was meant to have taken place, March
10, 2001, he was “at home with the children.” He had taken Princess Beatrice to
a party at a Pizza Express restaurant in Woking at about 4 or 5 p.m., “And then
because the Duchess was away, we have a simple rule in the family that when one
is away the other one is there.”
“Going to Pizza Express
in Woking is an unusual thing for me to do,” he said. “I remember it weirdly
distinctly.”
He never suspected
Epstein’s criminal behaviour or saw anything unusual about the large number of
guests at what have been alleged to be orgies. “I live in an institution at
Buckingham Palace which has members of staff walking around all the time and I
don’t wish to appear grand but there were a lot of people who were walking
around Jeffrey Epstein’s house. As far as I was aware, they were staff.”
Andrew still did not
regret being friends with Epstein. Knowing Epstein had “some seriously
beneficial outcomes… The people that I met and the opportunities that I was
given to learn, either by him or because of him, were actually very useful.”
Maitlis closed the
interview by asking, “Would you be willing to testify or give a statement under
oath if you were asked?” He replied, “If push came to shove and the legal
advice was to do so, then I would be duty bound to do so.”
This may yet prove to
be the most damaging statement made by the prince. Lawyers representing 10 of
Epstein’s victims have demanded that he now speak to the FBI.
Gloria Allred,
representing five of Epstein’s victims, told the Guardian, “The
right and honourable action for Prince Andrew to take now is for him to
volunteer to be interviewed by the FBI and prosecutors for the southern
district of New York.”
Lisa Bloom, who
represents another five victims, said that some of the prince’s answers were
“simply not credible.”
Anna Rothwell, from
criminal law firm Corker Binning, said, “Prince Andrew is not entitled to any
form of immunity by virtue of his position as a member of the royal family. His
friendship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is under investigation
by the FBI and he is vulnerable to extradition.”
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